DVB-S as DVB-T

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No1Daemon

172 posts

Master Geek

#102865 4-Jan-2008 11:15

walt12: I concur with this. I have a HVR-4000. Works like a charm with GB-PVR. Was difficult to set up as a hybrid card with MP.

Using it for DVB-S and DVB-T tests, not for analog. Have a PVR150 for analog capture (mainly SKY).

Perhaps you can go into more detail about what didn't work with GB-PVR?

Hi. See the quote below for reasons I moved away from GBPVR. It really is a great piece of software that works incredibly well and if it wasnt for thse 2 issues I would still be using it. You may think I am fussy but if I am using an hdmi cable for transmission from my pc to my television I should be achieiving a better quality image that the one from my stb box to my television using an av cable and I am not. It is jumpy and breakups occasionally.
I beleive some of my problem is actually related to sound but it is hard to pin down what it is.

walt12

324 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#102868 4-Jan-2008 11:24

Picture quality and forced 16:9 resolution are competing ideals. The fact is there is still a significant amount of content broadcast in native 4:3, and if PQ is your top priority then it is best presented in that format with the sidebars rather than stretched to 16:9 with PQ compromised.

Eventually all content will be native 16:9, problem solved.

Sidebars don't bother me personally. In the same way that watching 16:9 content for years on 4:3 CRT (with the letterbox effect) didn't either - I got used to it.

walt12

324 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#102869 4-Jan-2008 11:26

No1Daemon:
walt12: I concur with this. I have a HVR-4000. Works like a charm with GB-PVR. Was difficult to set up as a hybrid card with MP.

Using it for DVB-S and DVB-T tests, not for analog. Have a PVR150 for analog capture (mainly SKY).

Perhaps you can go into more detail about what didn't work with GB-PVR?

Hi. See the quote below for reasons I moved away from GBPVR. It really is a great piece of software that works incredibly well and if it wasnt for thse 2 issues I would still be using it. You may think I am fussy but if I am using an hdmi cable for transmission from my pc to my television I should be achieiving a better quality image that the one from my stb box to my television using an av cable and I am not. It is jumpy and breakups occasionally.
I beleive some of my problem is actually related to sound but it is hard to pin down what it is.

Are you using the analog part of the card to capture your SKY STB?

Because if so, that's composite capture which will never be any better than straight STB -> TV. Regardless of what you use to hook up HTPC to TV.

No1Daemon

172 posts

Master Geek

#102871 4-Jan-2008 11:33

walt12: Picture quality and forced 16:9 resolution are competing ideals. The fact is there is still a significant amount of content broadcast in native 4:3, and if PQ is your top priority then it is best presented in that format with the sidebars rather than stretched to 16:9 with PQ compromised.

Eventually all content will be native 16:9, problem solved.

Sidebars don't bother me personally. In the same way that watching 16:9 content for years on 4:3 CRT (with the letterbox effect) didn't either - I got used to it.

I disagree. It is individual taste, my wife likes he picture full screen and so do I. I do not give a mokeys wether or not I lose some slight quality, just that the image is displayed correctly. I have spent years watching television with nu black bars and I don't intend to start now.
Plus as would be obvious if you looked at Mytheatre, it is possible to not have to watch them, I notice no quality difference in broadcasts using that software.

No1Daemon

172 posts

Master Geek

#102873 4-Jan-2008 11:34

walt12:
No1Daemon:
walt12: I concur with this. I have a HVR-4000. Works like a charm with GB-PVR. Was difficult to set up as a hybrid card with MP.

Using it for DVB-S and DVB-T tests, not for analog. Have a PVR150 for analog capture (mainly SKY).

Perhaps you can go into more detail about what didn't work with GB-PVR?

Hi. See the quote below for reasons I moved away from GBPVR. It really is a great piece of software that works incredibly well and if it wasnt for thse 2 issues I would still be using it. You may think I am fussy but if I am using an hdmi cable for transmission from my pc to my television I should be achieiving a better quality image that the one from my stb box to my television using an av cable and I am not. It is jumpy and breakups occasionally.
I beleive some of my problem is actually related to sound but it is hard to pin down what it is.

Are you using the analog part of the card to capture your SKY STB?

Because if so, that's composite capture which will never be any better than straight STB -> TV. Regardless of what you use to hook up HTPC to TV.

No. For analogue capture I use a seperate leadtek tv2000xp

walt12

324 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#102881 4-Jan-2008 11:44

Yes but are you using composite to capture the STB? Just because you have your TV hooked up with HDMI, doesn't mean you'll get better quality than STB -> TV. In fact worse if the STB -> TV is using component as on the latest SKY STB's. Junk in, junk out. I can confirm this as my PQ is slightly worse when viewing SKY via the PVR than viewing direct via component, because I use the VCR (composite) scart to capture SKY.

Also have to consider pixel mapping when hooking up a HTPC to TV via HDMI, particularly if viewing text etc. If you use it to surf the web etc, then it may be better to use VGA if your TV doesn't support 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI.

As for the PQ issue, the reason I raised PQ is that you complained of quality degradation. If you want full screen regardless of content, then fine, it is a personal taste issue, and there are a number of ways to achieve that. But that will compromise PQ because it requires post-processing.

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No1Daemon

172 posts

Master Geek

#102885 4-Jan-2008 11:56

Hi. Thanks for that. I have had a few replies now from people who say something along the lines of "I got used to black lines, you should too" but I have an issue with it so I will not settle for it.
I have tried ffdshow post processing etc and it reduced the frame rate too much to be usable.
I have no idea at all about pixle mapping so I will look into it more. Thanks.
I am not even really using the analogue capture and have been exclusively concentrating on dvb-s image quality so I am only worried about that at the moment.
I mentioned picture quality in the fact that if you take the exact same piece of live tv from my satellite cable direct to my television via the pc then the image looks far worse in gbpvr than it does in mytheatre.

walt12

324 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#102890 4-Jan-2008 12:24

If its DVB-S PQ then it can only be a difference in the MPEG2 decoder being used between GB-PVR and MyTheatre. Have you tried using GraphEdit to check the decode path?

No1Daemon

172 posts

Master Geek

#102891 4-Jan-2008 12:27

walt12: If its DVB-S PQ then it can only be a difference in the MPEG2 decoder being used between GB-PVR and MyTheatre. Have you tried using GraphEdit to check the decode path?

No I haven't tried it. I will download and see if I can puzzle it out.

No1Daemon

172 posts

Master Geek

#103192 6-Jan-2008 19:47

After re reading my posts earlier I realised perhaps I was too hasty in saying I had no intention of using mce so I am giving it a go.

Anyone here can help with driver installation etc for the hvr3000?

I have the latest drivers and the reg hack mentioned earlier in the post but no luck getting tv at all yet. Either prior to installing the reg hack in wintv or after using the antenna/australian region settings in mce.

Any ideas?

walt12

324 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#103251 7-Jan-2008 09:16

I believe that MCE has a problem with H.264 encoded DVB-T material. I don't use it so can't be 100% certain, perhaps someone else can confirm.

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No1Daemon

172 posts

Master Geek

#103259 7-Jan-2008 09:35

after much sagging around I got it working but now have an unknown error.
It states when I open mce "your video card or drivers are not compatible with media center"

Then opens anyway but I cannot use livetv or videos becuase it then states "video error: files needed to display video are not installed or missing please restart media center or your computer."

Just another challending software experience in the life of the typical htpc!

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